Chapter 7: Fieldwork (September)

September should have been the monsoon's peak — the peak being the month when Pune received its heaviest rainfall and the Sahyadris wore their greenest and the rivers ran fullest and the fullest being: the Western Ghats at maximum capacity, the capacity that the ecosystem had evolved to expect and that the expecting was the biological clock that every species in the Ghats ran on.

September was dry. Forty-seven days without meaningful rain. The meaningful being the qualifier — a drizzle on Day 32 that lasted eleven minutes and deposited 0.3mm of rainfall was technically rain but functionally not, the functionally-not being: 0.3mm evaporated before it reached the soil and the not-reaching being the definition of meaningless.

Bhushan's fieldwork intensified. The intensifying being: the NCWGEA budget releasing funds, the funds enabling what the funds were designed to enable — equipment, transportation, research assistants. Two new PhD students joined the team — Shalini from JNU and Rahul from IISc Bangalore. The students being: young, earnest, the particular Indian PhD student combination of overqualification and underfunding that produced researchers who worked sixteen-hour days because the sixteen-hours were the passion and the passion was the work.

Field Site 1: Mulshi. Bhushan's home territory. The territory where the anomaly began — the fireflies stopping on July 14th, the stopping that was now Day 1 of what Sharma had begun calling "the Mulshi Event" and that the naming was the scientist's particular method of containing the uncontainable: name it, and the naming gives you the illusion of understanding.

The Mulshi data at Day 60:

- Insect populations: 96% below baseline

- Amphibian populations: 89% below baseline

- Bird populations: 91% below baseline

- Mammal sightings: 67% below baseline

- Soil microbial activity: 52% below baseline

- Mycorrhizal network connectivity: 41% of normal

- Rainfall: 0mm in 47 days

- Bore well levels: 2.1 metres below normal

The numbers that Bhushan compiled into a spreadsheet — the spreadsheet that was the investigation's central document, the document that grew daily as data flowed in from the five field sites and that the growing was the evidence and the evidence was: comprehensive, undeniable, terrifying.

Tarun joined the fieldwork. The joining being: Raghav's decision that the story required firsthand observation and that the firsthand-observation required the reporter to be in the field rather than in the office, the rather-than being the allocation of resources that the Herald made when a story was significant enough to justify a reporter's extended deployment.

"Ek mahina," Raghav said. "Pune mein reh. Fieldwork cover kar. Weekly dispatches bhej." One month. Stay in Pune. Cover the fieldwork. Send weekly dispatches.

One month in Pune. Tarun rented a room in a paying guest accommodation in Kothrud — the PG being the particular Indian accommodation: a room in someone's flat with shared bathroom and kitchen privileges, the privileges being limited (kitchen access 7-9 AM and 7-9 PM, bathroom queue in the morning, the queue being the PG's particular social infrastructure).

His first field day was with Bhushan in Mulshi — the field day being the day that changed Tarun's understanding of the story from intellectual to visceral.

They walked the tree line behind Bhushan's farmhouse. The tree line that Bhushan had described to Tarun — the teak and jamun boundary, the boundary between the maintained and the wild. The boundary that should have been: alive, buzzing, the buzzing of an Indian monsoon forest in September being the sound that contained everything — insects, birds, frogs, the wind through leaves, the leaves' particular rustle that was the forest's voice.

The boundary was silent.

Not quiet. Silent. The distinction being: quiet was the absence of loud, silence was the absence of everything. The forest was absent of everything. No insect hum. No bird call. No frog song. No leaf rustle — because the leaves were dry and the dry-leaves did not rustle, the dry-leaves crackled and the crackling was the sound of something dying.

"Sun," Bhushan said. Standing in the tree line. "Kya sun raha hai?" Listen. What do you hear?

Tarun listened. The listening being: active, deliberate, the reporter's listening that was trained to capture sound and that the training was producing: nothing. Nothing to capture. The forest was producing nothing.

"Kuch nahi," Tarun said. Nothing.

"Exactly. September mein — yeh forest 80 decibels produce karta tha. Cicadas alone 70 decibels. Ab — zero. Silence. Yeh forest mara nahi hai — yeh forest comatose hai."

In September — this forest produced 80 decibels. Cicadas alone 70 decibels. Now — zero. Silence. This forest isn't dead — it's comatose.

Comatose. The medical metaphor that the ecologist borrowed from his nurse-wife's vocabulary — the metaphor that fit because: the forest was alive (the trees stood, the roots were in the ground, the structure remained) but the forest was not functioning. The not-functioning being: the forest's systems — its sound, its movement, its productivity — had shut down, the shutting-down being the coma's definition: alive but non-responsive.

They walked deeper. The deeper being: into the forest proper, past the tree line into the interior where the teak gave way to older growth, the older-growth being the forest that had existed before Bhushan's farmhouse, before Mulshi's development, the forest that was hundreds of years old and whose hundreds-of-years were the permanence that the anomaly challenged.

Bhushan stopped at a teak tree. The tree being: large, established, the particular teak that produced the wood that Indian furniture was made from. He pressed his hand against the trunk.

"Feel karo," he said. Feel it.

Tarun pressed his hand against the trunk. The pressing being: the touch that produced the information. The information being: the bark was warm. Not sun-warm — the tree was in shade. The warm being: internal. The tree's internal temperature was elevated.

"Garam hai," Tarun said. It's warm.

"Trees ka internal temperature elevated ho raha hai. Sab trees ka. Yeh fever hai — literally. Trees ko fever hai." The diagnosis that Bhushan delivered with the particular weight of a man who had spent thirty years with trees and who the spending-thirty-years had produced the relationship that the relationship produced: grief. The trees had fever. The trees that Bhushan had known for decades had fever and the fever was the symptom and the symptom was the anomaly's latest expression.

Trees' internal temperature is elevated. All trees. This is fever — literally. The trees have fever.

Tarun wrote. The writing being: the notebook filling, the filling being the record that the reporter created as the reporter's testimony — I was here, I saw this, I felt this, the feeling being the evidence that supplemented the data.

They collected soil samples. The collecting being: Bhushan's hands in the earth, the earth that was dry when the earth should have been saturated, the saturation being September's gift to the soil and the gift not arriving.

"Dekh," Bhushan said, holding a handful of soil. "Yeh September ki mitti hai? Yeh March ki mitti lagti hai. Sukhi. Dusty. September mein yeh mitti black hoti hai — rich, wet, the colour of life. Ab yeh brown hai. The colour of —"

Look. Is this September soil? This looks like March soil. Dry. Dusty. In September this soil is black — rich, wet, the colour of life. Now it's brown. The colour of —

He didn't finish. The not-finishing being: the ecologist choosing not to name what brown soil in September meant because the naming would be: the colour of death. And naming it would make it real and the real was the thing that Bhushan was still resisting because the resisting was the human's response to the unacceptable.

They returned to the farmhouse. Charu had made chai — the ginger-cardamom chai that was the constant, the constant in a world where constants were disappearing.

Chitra was sitting on the verandah, drawing. The drawing being: a picture. The picture being: the garden with fireflies. The fireflies that Chitra had drawn in yellow crayon — dots of yellow across a green garden, the green garden that existed in the drawing but not in reality, the reality being: brown garden, no fireflies.

"Yeh kya bana rahi hai, beta?" Bhushan asked. What are you drawing, sweetheart?

"Jugnu. Jaise pehle the." Fireflies. Like before.

Like before. The two words that contained the child's particular understanding: before was different from now, before had fireflies, now did not, the not-having being the absence that the child processed through drawing because drawing was the child's particular method of preserving what was lost.

Bhushan looked at Tarun. Tarun looked at Bhushan. The looking being: the shared understanding between two men who were processing the same thing — the same anomaly, the same fear, the same question: what is happening?

Tarun wrote his weekly dispatch that night. The dispatch being: 2,000 words, the longest he had written for the Herald, the longest because the fieldwork had produced more than the normal dispatch could contain and the containing required the extra words.

FROM THE FIELD: THE WESTERN GHATS ARE SILENT — AND THE SILENCE IS TERRIFYING

The dispatch that contained: the 80-decibel forest now at zero. The trees with fever. The September soil that looked like March. Chitra's drawing of fireflies that no longer existed.

The dispatch that ended with: "We are watching the world change. Not the gradual change of climate over decades — the sudden, unexplained change of an ecosystem shutting down in real time. The Western Ghats are not dying. The Western Ghats are going to sleep. And nobody knows if they will wake up."